With the Olympic Theatre , my final work, everything came together; everything was fulfilled. Only then did I understand: it had to be small, it had to be here and not at the Redentore Church. The centrally planned temple — the church I had always imagined . . Just as Villa La Rotonda  had been the ideal among villas, here my friend — by now I could allow myself to call the greatest Venetians of my age friends, I who came from such humble origins — Marcantonio Barbaro  gave

Girolamo, the grandson of the queen of Cyprus- Caterina Corner , was dying: this is how his son Giorgio, who owned half the property in Piombino, called me to design a beautiful, delightful and comfortable villa. By now I had become famous in Venice, sought by the most important families to hurry to live in the mansion I created for them: so, immediately after the wedding with Elena Contarini , only the central block finished, the Cornaro family already moved there, inviting

Everything was accomplished here, in this final act. I lived an extraordinary life, and this is my gift to Vicenza , to its families, to Venice , to history. With deep gratitude I remember my reliefs at the Berga Theatre, the Roman theatre of my city. Five thousand seats—how I longed to be there. To live that Vicenza , and from there leave for Rome —for that Rome. With the Academy I had helped to found several years earlier together with my friends, we had obtained from the c

The palace of one of the apostolic families of Venice , inside a huge park full of water, was built over the centuries, well beyond my little history. Great works are like this: they transcend the men who imagined them, those who designed them, those who built them. And they belong to all of them, through the generations. There is an initial idea of ​​mine here, when you could still see an ancient castle still to be refined, to be rescued from the bad weather and the roughne

Cavalier Bonifacio Pojana was a worthy heir to his family: a strong man of arms, with a beard that framed a powerful jaw, eyes wide and wide open under the forehead, a stern gaze. The undisputed lord of his fiefdom, for centuries, always alongside Venice . So I designed his villa , having discovered in my travels to Rome that power and elegance can go hand in hand with some simplicity, if well designed, as in the Baths of Diocletian. Together with the war frescoes, this sober

Leonardo, son of my friend Giovanni Alvise Valmarana and his very noble wife Isabella Nogarole, on the occasion of the death of his brother Antonio, asked me to design the family chapel in the crypt of the temple of S. Corona, the Vicenza shrine. The sacred , death, perpetuity: four years earlier my sons Leonidas and Orazio died, four years later it would be my turn, I too buried here, like the greatest Vicentines. Valmarana Chapel is only one of the many reflections of the h

Girolamo Forni was another of mine - not many to tell the truth - bourgeois clients.​ Like the notary Cogollo for example, for whom I had studied a similar solution on the facade.​ He supplied wood to many of my sites, such as that of Palazzo Chiericati , and had grown rich. He was an entrepreneur who painted himself, who collected antiques, which he then founded together with me and Vittoria and I considered him our friend. So it was that out of friendship I redesigned, wha

Now old, now "Venetian", in front of my Basilica under construction, I was given the task of building the Loggia del Capitaniato , symbol of the militar authority of Venice on the city. Venice facing Vicenza , I tried to represent them in their harmonious proximity: dominant Venice, glorious and attentive presence, observes the families of an intelligent Vicenza gathered in Council . Loggia del Capitaniato is only one of the many reflections of the historical, cultural and ar

For the very rich congregation of the Benedictines of Venice I first created a succession of portals and huge barrel-vaulted spaces, in a grandiose path like the ancient thermal buildings of Rome : it was my refectory that was accomplished in the sumptuous Canaan Wedding of my friend Paolo Veronese , which pierced the fifth, continuing my architecture on canvas.​ A few years later, even leaving a drawing for the cloister, I was in charge of the large church of the convent: